Trash tally Trash tally (April 30, 2004)

The challenge of moving city's 434,000 pounds of waste a day

By Dan Stapleton

Most people don't put a lot of thought into the trash they put out on the curb. But dealing with all that trash is a bigger and more complicated job than you might think.

On the average day in 2003, Mountain View threw away 434,537 pounds of trash, including 59,100 pounds of separated recyclables like newspaper, plastic, glass and cans and 34,200 pounds of yard waste, such as grass clippings, leaves and tree limbs.

Over the course of the year that comes to a total of 15.8 million pounds of garbage, but only 9.8 million pounds of that made it to a landfill. Between the time you put it out on the curb and the time it reaches its final destination, your trash makes a stop at the Sunnyvale Materials Recovery and Transfer (SMaRT) Station in Sunnyvale where recyclable plastics, cans, glass, cardboard and paper are sorted out to reduce the amount of trash put into landfills.

In 1988, California was dumping more than 1,500 pounds of waste into landfills for each person every year, more than any other state. Recognizing that the state would soon exhaust all available landfill space, the state Assembly passed a new law in 1989 requiring that all cities divert at least 25 percent of their waste from landfills by 1995, and 50 percent by 2000 or face steep fines.

To help meet that goal, the SMaRT Station was built on the site of Sunnyvale's old dump and began operating on May 6, 1994. It was designed to replace the conventional dump and reduce the volume of trash that the cities of Mountain View, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale sends to landfills. Today, thanks to the SMaRT Station and other programs, Mountain View recycles between 51 and 57 percent of its garbage.

Every day, the three cities send around 2.2 million pounds of trash to the SMaRT Station. The trash arrives in bags that are dumped onto conveyer belts and put through what Mountain View solid waste program manager Cynthia Palacio describes as a giant mousetrap of mechanical and human sorters that pick out everything that can possibly be recycled.

"We recover about 18 percent of recyclables out of the trash. That's fabulous," said Palacio.

A combination of air jets and magnets separate out many plastic and metal containers, and then human sorters divide the recyclables into more specific categories. Sorting recyclables makes the recycling process much less expensive for taxpayers because it helps the program to pay for itself. When the recycled items are turned back into raw materials, the fewer impurities there are, the more manufacturers are willing to pay.

At the end of the line, materials are compressed into bales and wrapped in wire. "When you go to the SMaRT Station, you see blocks of newspaper, blocks of plastic bottles, blocks of tin cans. It's very pretty," said Palacio.

The materials are then sold back to a wide variety of manufacturers. Anheuser Busch buys aluminum, Epic Plastics buys a mixture of plastics, Strategic Materials buys glass and SimsMetal America buys scrap metal. Paper is sent everywhere, from Bay Area mills to the Pacific Northwest, and some is even shipped overseas to China.

"Mountain View residents do a fabulous job of recycling. I've worked with other cities, and I'm very proud of Mountain View," said Palacio. The one thing that Palacio noted that Mountain View recyclers could do better is to not try to recycle plastic bags or pizza boxes, which she cites as the biggest contaminants in the recycling operation. Plastic bags are non-recyclable and can clog machines, and pizza boxes and other food wrappers are so full of grease and food that they can't be reused.

Some local residents are so committed to recycling that the city has provided them with extra 32-gallon carts for free. Mountain View will also be receiving 64-gallon bins which residents can exchange with their current 32-gallon ones. To upgrade your recycling capability, call Foothill Disposal at 967-3034 or the city's public works department at 903-6311.

The SMaRT Station is celebrating its 10th anniversary on May 6 from 10 a.m. to noon. The public is invited to attend and tours of the facility will begin at 11:30 a.m. It is located at 301 Carl Road in Sunnyvale. For more information, call (408) 730-7262 or visit www.sunnyvalerecycles.org.

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